Less than a week after suspending online sales in Russia, Apple is once again pushing iPhones, iPads and other products in that country — albeit with steep price hikes.
Apple, which temporarily stopped online sales in Russia last week due to the ruble’s “extreme” fluctuations, reopened its Russian online store on Monday with iPhones offered at almost a 35% premium. Russia’s currency has lost about 30% versus the U.S. dollar in recent weeks amid plummeting oil prices and Western economic sanctions against the country following its invasion of Ukraine.
Apple said last week that its Russian website would be unavailable while Apple reviewed its product pricing as the ruble continued to lose value. Today, the online store reopened with an iPhone 6 with 16 gigabytes of memory going for 53,990 rubles, compared to the same item selling for 39,990 rubles last week, according to Bloomberg. Translated to U.S. dollars, that’s an increase from about $727 to $966.
Apple (AAPL) previously hiked prices in Russia, by about 25% as recently as November due to the ruble’s decline. The company, which has no brick-and-mortar stores in Russia, also informed developers on Friday that it was raising the prices in its Russian app store to 62 rubles for a basic app from 33 rubles, according to the Tass newswire.
